The Gilded Teapot

Gilded Teapot specialise in fine and rare loose leaf tea from around the world. They have a boutique shop here in Dorchester, Dorset where they produce and sell their own popular blends including 'Dorset Brew'.

The Challenge

Gilded Teapot are ethical 'Tea Hunters' who approached us to redesign their website to better communicate their brand. Their target users range from Dorset locals and tourists who like tradition, to international online shop customers who are mostly younger professionals keen to seek new and exciting products from around the world.

Our Approach

We designed the Home page and main information pages of the site as a one page parallax style scrolling site, including animated full screen photos for an initial 'wow' factor and to fully immerse users into the brand. We included product recommendations on the Home page to help people start shopping and embedded video to further engage users. In contrast to the darker colours of the Home page, we created a more minimalist shop section which includes recommendations of related products on the shop pages as well as upselling products such as Gift Wrap and Accessories in the Shop Basket.

The Results

The site is beautiful, bold and stylish, making strong use of their branding, typography and photography. A colour pallette was chosen to compliment their photography and packaging. We hope the website emulates the feel of visiting the real shop, whilst being an enjoyable independent experience where it is easy to browse or search for products online. The site has been built by our Developers using Wordpress as an easy-to-use Content Management System, integrating WooCommerce and SagePay to power the shop.

Ongoing Aims

We absolutely loved working with the Gilded Teapot and after launching the new site we were really pleased to hear that after less than 3 months, not only have conversions increased by 50% (despite the site visitors remaining as they were without SEO, at present), but that customers are looking at the new website, spending time looking at the range, then going in-store to their Dorchester shop to purchase, so the improved site has had a positive effect on their bricks-and-mortar sales as well.

"We think [the website design] concept is absolutely brilliant. Exactly what we're looking for. The layout is great, the colour palette is spot on. Also like the layout of the product page very much. Nice and clean, but still has our personality."